


Drowning

by Silverfishy



Category: Big Bang (Band)
Genre: Feelings, Life Saving, M/M, Second Hand Breathing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-17
Updated: 2014-12-17
Packaged: 2018-03-01 21:46:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2788895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silverfishy/pseuds/Silverfishy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Fuck,</i> Seunghyun thinks. <i>I'm gonna drown in a metre and a half of water.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Drowning

**Author's Note:**

> This was born from watching that episode of "Explorers of the Human Body" where Super Junior learn to pass air to each other underwater. (Its super cute and all on youtube so go watch it).

The light ripples above him, constantly shifting. He can hear shouting far away and a dull roar that fills his ears and his head, thumping, pounding. Everything is muffled by the water. His thoughts are a blur, and he's aware of a dull pain in his legs that he is semi-consiously choosing not to focus on too hard, lest it become more pressing.

There are bodies around him, legs, swirling the sand up in clouds around his head, moving about. Arms, reaching down through the blur, hands on his shoulders, his arms.

Youngbae's face dappled in light, out of focus, looking... worried? More than worried, frantic. Hands touching his face, ones he recognises from a thousand friendly punches, pats, high fives.

The hands are gone. The press of a leg next to his waist, and sudden shooting pain up his nerve endings and spine, like a kick in the gut.

He screams, feels his body spasm, jerking. There are hands on his face again and now his chest hurts as well as his legs. There's a tightness, a burning.

The world narrows to his chest, his throat, his mouth. Instinct fighting itself. Take a breath. Don't open your mouth. Take a breath. Don't open your mouth. Take a breath. Need a breath. Need to breathe.

Hands on his face, nails digging in, and pressure against his mouth. Movement against his lips and he opens his mouth without thought, too far gone. Oxygen starved but knowing there is none to be had.

_Fuck, I'm gonna drown in a metre and a half of water._

Breathing in, expecting the rush of death, but swallowing air instead. A blessing. A miracle.

He opens eyes he wasn't conscious of having closed and Jiyong's face is _right there_ , even in hyper close up he'd know the curves of that brow, that eye anywhere.

With the little processing power he's recovered in the moment of miracle air, he realises just how close Jiyong is, that it's his mouth he can feel pressed up against his own.

Jiyong's air he's breathing.

It's a good thing his body's mostly in shock, or he'd probably do some damage with the way he jerks in surprise. As it is the precious bubbles escape his mouth and he sees Jiyong's eyes narrow. They're close enough that he can see the panic in them even through the distortion of the water.

Then he's alone again in the dark, with no air, but he doesn't even finish processing the thought that _Jiyong left me_ before the other man is back again with his lips pressed against his own.

Now that he's a little more conscious it takes more effort, comes less naturally, and more bubbles escape out of the sides of their mouths to hurry their way back to the surface. He gets only a few moments of relief before the need to breathe is back in full force.

Jiyong is back again though, and he's starting not to worry so much when the other man disappears because it's finally filtered its way through the fog in his brain that Jiyong is fetching air for him.

They do that for a while, until he's got his panic under control and can think as clearly as possible under the circumstances. He can still feel Youngbae down by his legs and when whatever it is that's making them feel numb and achy moves and sends more spikes of agony lancing up his spine, he thinks he cries out into Jiyong's mouth.

The gap between the second hand breaths is moments longer this time and his chest is burning again, but there are no more painful movements and he can lie still and just focus on holding the air until the next time Jiyong's face swims into view, mouth full of the breath of life.

You're supposed to see your life flash before your eyes as you die, and he tries to think about the events that led him here. It's hazy, he can only remember flashes.

_"Uah, it's so hot here! Let's go to the beach later." Daesung stretching, arms raised above his head as he basks in the bright sunlight streaming through the window of their vacation home._

_"Hyung look, caves!" Jiyong's excited face as he points to the cliffs that line the deserted beach, and the shadowy mouth of a sea cave with shafts of light full of spray that sparkles like smoke._

_Seungri walking along a precipice inside the tunnels, Youngbae kicking Jiyong as he tries to distract the maknae and make him fall._

_"The water isn't even that deep, look. You can see the bottom." Someone's hand pointing at tranluscent pools, tiny fish flickering in the depths, trapped by the tide._

_A half-blocked tunnel. An attempt to climb over it. "Hyung!" Jiyong's voice. Or was it Seungri's? Rocks fall. Tumble. Water, chaos, panic._

_And the shifting subtle patterns of light far above._

He doesn't know how long he and Jiyong have been doing this. Has it been minutes? Hours? Years? He's losing his sense of time.

There are periods where the face that meets his is Youngbae's instead, his mouth shaped differently, the way he purses his lips to push oxygen into his mouth different. It never lasts more than a few breaths before Jiyong is back though. Perhaps the leader feels like it's his job, his responsiblity.

That makes him feel sad, somehow.

He's drifted into a kind of trance of light patterns and Jiyong's mouth and eyes. It's shattered when suddenly there are more legs in the water around him, more than the four pairs he has enough sense to expect. The breaths don't stop coming though, even and calm like they've been for the last little while, though it must not leave Jiyong much time to talk to whoever has just arrived.

The other legs are congregating around his waist and he feels apprehension creep around the edges of his comfortable trance.

Jiyong appears, gives him a breath but then doesn't disappear, just holds his face in his hands and presses his forehead against his own.

Then the pain is back, worse than before, white hot and searing his nerve endings. The small of his back feels like its on fire and everything from his knees down has the worst pins and needles he can imagine, on top of stabbing pains that shoot through up his right leg.

He whines, screams into Jiyong's mouth, which is suddenly _there_ again even though there's no air left, and bucks, grabbing hold of the other man and holding on for dear life as the shudders take him.

He tries to move his leg and feels the grind of bone against bone, and everything goes black.

-

He wakes up and the first thing he notices is that he can _breathe_. He spends a few minutes just feeling his chest rise and fall, the rush of air in his throat, the way the breath whistles through his nose and across the skin of his upper lip.

When he manages to open his eyes it's to the white sterility of a hospital room. A bleary glance sideways shows him Jiyong slumped in an uncomfortable-looking hospital chair, asleep, his bangs falling in his eyes and making him look young and tired. His eyes seem a little red.

He seems to sense that he's being watched, and when his eyes flicker open they immediately go to his face, and meet his own gaze.

"Hyung!" The smile that breaks out on his face is like the sun rising, like the sweetness of fresh air. Jiyong practically throws himself on him, and when he looks up their eyes meet again and he's staring at Jiyong's mouth.

His lips are chapped, like he's been licking and biting at them too much, and they are far away from the company with the makeup noonas who would chide and tell them to moisturise.

He's thinking about those lips, and that last kiss, when there was no air left to be passed.

Saying thankyou is redundant, obsolete, but when he presses his lips to Jiyong's own and the other man breathes in a heavy, shuddering breath through his nose, he thinks that maybe this is better.

And when Youngbae and Daesung and Seungri come back from their scavenger hunt with greasy chinese takeaway and they all dogpile on the hospital bed which is really too small for five grown men, one of whom is lying down - Jiyong doesn't let go of his hand.

Maybe, he thinks to himself with a cheesy grin that the others notice and tease him for, Jiyong especially, maybe he wouldn't mind drowing in Jiyong instead.


End file.
